Overview
This document quantifies the number of income and geographic qualified population in each state Solstice operates in. Additionally, results by utility zones is provided. We use state specific LMI and geographic qualification definitions and overlay utility zones to estimate the population covered. The goal of this work is to provide data driven insights when new markets are considered with LMI requirements.
Utility coverage is provided by either the HIFLD national level electric retail service territories or, preferably, state sources that are more granular. Note HIFLD often provides overlapping areas (ex: a municipal boundary and an utility provider) so data should primarily be sourced from state sources or be validated from HIFLD.
New Mexico
Geoqualification
In New Mexico, there is no geographic qualification methods, so we only focus on estimating the potential LMI population by various methods used in the state program.
LMI Qualifications
New Mexico LMI Qualification methods are detailed in the policy matrix, but in summary include:
- Medicaid
- SNAP
- LIHEAP
- First-time home owner programs
- Affordable housing facilities
- HUD data: https://resources.hud.gov/#layers-menu
- state specific to supplement: https://housingnm.org/find-housing/rentals/affordable
- Low-income housing
- State and federal income tax credit
- Entire multi-family housing project may qualify if the entire load can be proved to be low-income subscribers, with consent of all tenants of record.
- LMI - 80% of AMI
Census data is available for the population receiving Medicaid, SNAP, and number of households at or below 80% AMI. The following analysis quantifies the total eligible LMI population by each of these three categories.
Solstice operates in the following three utility zones in New Mexico:
- Public Service Company of New Mexico
- Excel
- El Paso Electric
The table below shows total population by LMI qualification method by utility area coverage. Note, these LMI groups are not mutually exclusive, rather are snap shots of the individual method’s population.
The map shows the census tracts loaded with the LMI qualification methods by utility zone coverage.
Low Income Housing
To estimate the total number of New Mexicans residing in low income housing, we first require a list of eligible properties. We take each affordable rental property listed on the MFA Housing New Mexico website. After geocoding each point, we have several options for determining the population concentration around each point. A common technique in transportation modeling is applying an isocrhone, or a travel time map. In our case, we want to see how many eligible population of SNAP, Medicaid and 80% AMI households are within a 15 and 30 minute driving radius around each point.